Month: October 2015

The way life unfolds itself does make me wonder, if this is all just a scripted play after all. It’s hilarious, it’s intriguing, dramatic even. If I were to be sitting in the audience watching the play from down below, I’d clap my hands in awe and amazement, thinking to myself;

What a wonderful performance.

Yet, the simple fact that this is all happening from the inside, from my very own perspective, shifts my emotions from amusement, to fear. Looking back at my previous posts, I was glad to see how optimistic I was about my papers. Even with the knowledge that I may fail, the future didn’t scare me. I thought I had my plans laid down in front of me, I thought that I had covered every single possible outcome, and I thought that I had prepped myself for whatever fate has in store for me.

How very wrong I was. I failed to see that the more I fortified my emotions to prepare for anything and everything, the more I would crumble when my entire world is forced into one, and only one outcome.

Funny, typing that reminded me of ‘Attack on Titan’. The walls they built were in a perimeter, surrounding potential dangers from all possible angles. And all it took was a single hole in the wall, big enough to fit a Titan, for everything on the inside to be destroyed, driven deeper and deeper into what’s left of the sanctuary. The security was an illusion, a false reassurance that everything will be taken care of.

This time, the Titan in my life has broken through my wall, and I’m doing everything in my will to remain standing strong.

I was faced with a decision which I must make, and never in my life have I felt a heavier weight than this. When I was 9, I had to choose which school I’d go, and that would determine the friends I make. Friends I would not have known now have I chosen another path. At 13, I was again faced with the similar scenario of choosing my secondary school, but at that point of time I had friends with me on either sides, and I was glad to walk in either directions.

Come 17, when the circle I have been in was forced apart by higher education. I walked on a path that no one else did, and I was alone again, after almost 10 years of having friends around me. I wanted someone, anyone familiar to be with me, so at the very least I can have the feeling that we’re in this together. But life is not all rainbows and unicorns. Somehow I made it through 5 years, met new friends, lived a new life, and became a new person. How, I do not know. I just know that the person that stepped outside of my highschool for the last time 5 years ago, was not the same person that stepped out of the exam hall 2 months ago.

Now, despite who I have become, life still has its own ways to test me. I planned for my future, had my priorities in check (hopefully), and envisioned a life ahead of me that I could live and be happy.

Yet something seemed to be in between my current state and my future visions. And no, I’m not talking about CLP, and I’m not talking about my failure to get through it. No, not really.

Over time, and I sincerely do not know when, I slowly began to lose myself. I don’t know what triggered it, or what contributed to it, let alone know what caused it, but as the clock ticked by, my perception on what that is happening around me gradually grew numb. That’s the best I could describe this feeling. It felt like a cloud was dampening my senses, not physically, but emotionally.

I became more negative, more pessimistic and more reserved. I no longer see the point in many things, and I question more and more, what exactly are all these for? We work our asses off to get good qualifications, so we can step into the machine we call the working world. And then what? Is there really a point spending half of our lives dead at work, just so we can earn to live? A never ending vicious cycle that we were so conditioned to think was the norm.

Hey, as long as the bills get paid and the food gets served on the table right?

I do agree. Survival, in the end, is the ultimate goal of the human race. The moment we are done with our education, or to put it another way, the moment we are qualified to survive on our own, we are expected to do so, and that is why we work. The dreams of a good income to support yourself and your future family, to live a decent life in happiness, isn’t that our true goal after all?

These thoughts plagued me for a year or so, and for the longest time, I had dreamt that I would one day, be able to break free from these chains and instead live a happy life the way I want it to be. It doesn’t have to be this way.

But reality never gave me much opportunity to bask in the comfort of my thoughts. Time and time again I am reminded that life is just the way it is, that I cannot escape the cycle that is yet to befall me, and I should just sit my ass down and do what everyone else is doing.

This conflict drove me to depression. The voice in my head became that of another entity, telling me again and again that what I seek is just a dream, an illusion. Nothing goes the way I wish it would in my life. Yes, I got a degree, graduated and managed to start a new chapter of my life free from any debt and obligations.

Those are all external. Internally, I was close to broken. For a long time, I grounded myself at home, away from society because I fear the pain comes from social relationships. I was indirectly rejected (long story), self-esteem destroyed and my trust for people around me diminished. That voice, kept on drilling into my head, that this world is vicious and unforgiving. I couldn’t open up, I couldn’t trust anyone but myself, and I kept thinking that everything and everyone is out to get me. I stopped letting people into my life, because in the end they’ll just leave anyway. I’m but a bystander in their life, and them in mine.

I lived my life the safest ways possible, just doing the bare minimum things to keep myself sane and contended. Fear took over me but I didn’t really feel it. It became a part of me so deeply rooted that I started to envy those around me. How much they’re enjoying life, how they look so happy, how they have someone by their side to share those moments with.

How do they make it look so easy?

But I shrugged it off, or at least tried. Those emotions are what made me weak, and I did not allow them to take full control of my life. I persevered and find all the silver lining in everything that is going on with my life, knowing, hoping that one day I will make sense of it all. Even if I don’t end up happy, at least I will end up strong. I told myself that it didn’t matter that many things were not going the way I wanted them to, because everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly, will have their time and place.

I lived like this for god knows how long. I stopped trying, I stopped caring and I just did what I feel would bring the most comforting outcome. I was happy, or at least I conditioned myself to be. I refused to see that the depression that started all this, was eating me away from the inside.

And then, the final slap to the face came. CLP. I won’t lie, I was both happy and sad that I failed. The part of me that is happy felt so because in a way, I’m finally free. I’m on a clean slate and I can now proceed to do things which matters to me. Nothing is holding me back but my own efforts and desires.

But the happiness I felt was shortlived. I was hit with reality that I have nothing to stand my ground on. I don’t have an overly huge amount of money saved up that I could take the risk of failing whatever it is I’m intending to pursue. I needed a steady income and I needed to get my life together. Thinking about this made me mad at myself even more. I had lost myself and I needed to do some soul searching before I could move on. I needed to step into the next stage in life for me to finally sit down and attend to what matters the most right now; myself. But as of now, I cannot do that. I had failed myself. I failed to keep the promise I made to myself to get all of this over with so I am at the very least one step closer to patching myself up and putting in efforts in living the life I want to live. I am already 23, and now I have to spend at least another 2 years before I can finally call myself a free man. By my own efforts (or lack thereof) I had put myself in such a position which I dreaded so much, stuck in a limbo.

I have so many things I wish to sort out emotionally and spiritually, and the fact that CLP is still sitting there staring at my face, makes me feel like telling life;

“Look here, enough is enough. I have better and more important things to attend to, so why don’t you just give me the fucking space that I need? With you still here, it feels like I have to now drive, shower, dress up, eat and brush my goddamn teeth at the same time. I just need time, and time is a commodity that I possess lesser and lesser as the days…the years go by.”

It was a rough week for me, if not a rough week for my brain. The amount of thinking I had been doing may have reached an unhealthy level, that maybe I should just stop thinking too much and live in the ‘now’. I often catch myself staring into space at work, when I’m driving, when I’m showering, and even when I’m typing this. I just hate feeling lost and not knowing what to do, and at the moment the road which lies ahead of me is one filled with spikes, pitfalls and engulfed with flames. That’s the only path available to me right now, and I shall proceed to walk on it as I ponder my options in the near future. Retaking the paper was never my top priority, but like I said, life has its ways of bringing things to you when you least desire for it.

Anndd, now I’ve spent my entire night venting out and it’s almost 12 already. Could’ve done something more relaxing but this is probably what I need right now. Just a platform to get shit off my chest.